Have President Obama and Democrat's Economic Programs Been Successful

Have President Obama and Democrat's Economic Programs Been Successful

Despite a deep recession, very high unemployment, and widespread hardship, a combination of existing safety net programs and temporary expansions in them enacted in 2009 all but prevented a rise in the poverty rate that year, according to a Center analysis of new poverty data the U.S. Census Bureau released this week that includes the effects of non-cash benefits and tax credits. This is a remarkable achievement; poverty usually burgeons in major recessions.

These findings come to light at an important time — just as Congress prepares for a major debate on the role of government in addressing economic and social problems.

The poverty protection came partly from existing programs — such as unemployment insurance, assistance programs for low-income households, and tax credits for low-income working families. But the bulk of the poverty protection came from improvements that the 2009 Recovery Act (ARRA) made in various programs. Although the Recovery Act was designed chiefly to bolster a collapsing economy, it generated the important side effect of protecting millions of families against poverty and massive income losses. Center analysis of the new Census data shows that the Recovery Act kept more than 4.5 million people out of poverty in 2009: 1.3 million people through extensions and expansions of federal unemployment benefits, 1.5 million people through improvements in the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, nearly 1 million people through the Making Work Pay tax credit, and another 700,000 people through an increase in benefit levels for the SNAP program (previously called food stamps).

The impact of these programs helps to explain why, under the “alternative” poverty measures that the Census Bureau released yesterday — which count non-cash benefits like food stamps and tax credits and which most analysts consider superior to the official poverty measure — poverty did not rise between 2008 and 2009, even as the economy fell deeper into recession, unemployment increased sharply, and many Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The official poverty measure misses these effects because it counts only conventional cash income and does not reflect the income that non-cash benefits and tax credits provide.


The Census Bureau’s Findings

Yesterday, the Census Bureau issued eight alternative poverty measures that reflect poverty-measurement recommendations that a blue-ribbon National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel made in the mid-1990s.[1] Most experts strongly prefer these NAS measures over the Census Bureau’s official poverty measure. All but one of the NAS measures tell the same story: the poverty rate in 2009 was statistically indistinguishable from the rate in 2008.

Under the measure most similar to the NAS panel’s recommendations, for example, 15.7 percent of Americans were poor in 2009, not statistically distinguishable from the 15.8 percent rate in 2008. Under one of the eight NAS measures, the poverty rate did rise a statistically significant amount — by 0.4 percentage points — but even that was far less than the increase shown in the official poverty measure, which rose 1.1 percentage points, from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent in 2009. [2]

Why Are the Alternative Poverty Rates Flat? The Role of the Recovery Act

The Center analyzed the household-level survey files that the Census Bureau released this week to determine the impact on poverty of seven provisions in the Recovery Act: three tax credits (the new Making Work Pay tax credit and improvements to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit); temporary expansions in SNAP benefits; two unemployment insurance provisions; and a one-time payment for people who are elderly or have serious disabilities and receive benefits through Social Security, the Supplemental Security Income program, veterans’ compensation, or the Railroad Retirement program. The methodology for this analysis is discussed in the appendix.

These seven Recovery Act provisions kept more than 4.5 million people from falling below the poverty line in 2009. In other words, without these provisions, over 4.5 million more people would have been poor.

These findings indicate that the Recovery Act is one of the single most effective pieces of legislation at preventing poverty to be enacted in decades. No program other than Social Security and the EITC kept this many people above the poverty line in 2009. (Social Security kept more than 20 million people out of poverty; the EITC kept 5 million out of poverty.)

Moreover, given that the EITC and most other programs are the result of gradual expansions under several different laws, it is difficult to think of a single piece of legislation since the Social Security Act of 1935 that kept more people above the poverty line in 2009 through direct assistance to households than the Recovery Act.

Yet Republicans claim Democratic policies have done nothing to help Americans. We can do better as someone once said, but Republican have fought the very programs which have kept millions of Americans out of extreme poverty. Those people have also helped American business by buying essentials like food and personal consumer items such as toothpaste and soap.

Glenn Beck, right-wing nut and hero to people too lazy to read the actual history that Beck frequently rewrites to fit his agenda picks a fight with fellow right-winger Mike Huckabee, Beck Rewrites History To Claim: "I've Never Said Progressive Is The Same As Nazi"

In the latest installment of Glenn Beck vs. Mike Huckabee, Beck seemed to think he had dealt Huckabee the ultimate blow. If only. In hitting back at Huckabee today on his radio show for the latter's recent criticism (in fact, a reply to Beck's first strike a few days ago), Beck accused Huckabee of trying to "smear" him by twisting his words. Beck fervently denied Huckabee's claim that Beck has said progressives are "the same as a 'cancer' and a 'Nazi.' "

Documentation of Beck's infantile attempts to link progressives like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to Nazism and communism. Its the same old story, when you lie as much as Beck, all to make millions off the rubes that watch him, you have a lot of trouble remembering all the lies you told. Beck's memory might be better if he had more integrity and lied less.